In line with yesterday’s reports, Apple has launched a new 8GB version of its iPhone 5c this morning, and has discontinued the iPad 2. Originally introduced way back in 2011, the tablet has been a mainstay for the Cupertino company in its second-tier tablet slot.

To replace the retired slate, Apple has resurrected its fourth-generation iPad, which it refers to as the ‘iPad with Retina display.’ The tablet features much better hardware than the iPad 2—with an A6X processor, 1GB of RAM—but will keep the same $399 price tag…

Apple may be planning to reintroduce the discontinued fourth-generation iPad alongside the 8GB iPhone 5c tomorrow, according to a new report from 9to5Mac. The site says that the iPad 4 could replace the current iPad 2 as Apple’s low-cost tablet option.

The 4th-gen iPad was originally launched in the fall of 2012, 6 months after the release of the iPad 3. It’s significantly more powerful than the iPad 2, with an A6X chip and 1 GB of memory, and it also includes a Retina display and the new Lightning connector…

KGI Securities’ Ming-Chi Kuo is out with a new research note this weekend, offering predictions on Apple’s tablet plans for the next two years. The analyst, who has a strong track record in tech predictions, believes that 2014 will be the year of the iPad Air.

Kuo sees Apple updating the full-sized iPad this year with an A8 processor, Touch ID fingerprint sensor, and possibly a few other improvements. But as for a new iPad mini and the oft-rumored 12.9-inch iPad “pro,” he believes we wont see them until 2015…

This past Friday, Apple’s new iPad Air went on sale in 40+ countries at 8am local time. Third-party data suggests that early adopters are in fact liking the thinner, lighter and faster full-size iPad a lot, as corroborated by early reviews. If you compare usage data across its first three days of availability, the iPad Air usage is around five times that of its predecessor, the iPad 4. And compared to the popular iPad mini, the new iPad Air is four times more used during its first few days of availability than the first-generation iPad mini was…

Apple claims the A7 chip inside the iPad Air provides two times faster performance over its predecessor, the fourth-generation iPad driven by the A6X chip, in both CPU and GPU department. The claim exasperated disbelief among some watchers who questioned and dismissed Apple’s ‘two times faster’ mantra as pure marketing talk with strings attached.

Per early GeekBench scores, the iPad Air is over 80 percent faster than the iPad 4, close enough to Apple’s advertised 2x CPU gain. But what about graphics?

After introducing of the new iPad Air and iPad mini with Retina display yesterday, Apple lowered the prices of its refurbished iPads across the board. The entry-level (first-gen) iPad mini, for example is now just $249.

That’s down $30 from where it was before the new iPad announcements, and $50 less than a new one, which Apple dropped down to $299 yesterday. And don’t worry, Apple has discounted its full-sized tablets as well…

The popularity of Apple’s iPhone 5c is increasing. After a string of reports suggesting more iPhone 5s handsets were being sold, new numbers shop the sales gap shrinking. In a curious move for a smartphone first thought to attract mainly emerging markets, the iPhone 5c popularity in the U.S. is higher than overall global demand.

According to researchers at Localytics, the ration of iPhone to iPhone 5s sales is 1.9, much smaller than the 3.4 ratio reported during the first week of sales for Apple’s two new iPhones…

Apple’s iPad mini has the most responsive tablet touchscreen, according to some new tests by Agawi. The app-streaming company recently ran it and several other slates through its rigorous TouchMark benchmark to measure the field.

The mini registered a 75ms delay on the latency test, coming in just 6ms ahead of the iPad 4, which posted an 81ms lag. And the rest of the competition was pretty far behind, with the Surface RT at 95ms and the Kindle Fire HD at 114…

With Apple’s September 10 event now less than a week away, all of the tech world’s attention has turned to the next generation iPhones. It’s believed that we’ll see two of them next week: an updated iPhone 5S, and an all-new budget iPhone 5C.

But let’s not forget that these aren’t the only new products in Apple’s pipeline. The company also has updated iPads in the wings, which are expected to be unveiled in October. And one of them, said to be the iPad 5, was just caught on tape…

Best Buy is set to bring back its iPad trade-in program today, according to a new report. The retailer debuted the program earlier this month as part of a two-day promotion, which allowed iPad owners to trade-in their devices for late generation models.

The deal is very much the same this time around, with Best Buy offering iPad 2 and 3 owners gift cards for their tablets, starting at $200, to be used towards the purchase of a fourth gen. We’ve posted the leaked internal employee memo after the fold…